Richmond Council has come under fire for granting planning permission for a controversial back garden development despite objections from a high profile historian.

TV Tudor expert David Starkey waded into the debate last week as the council's planning committee agreed to allow a high tech 'eco home' to be built in the garden of a home bordering the remains of Richmond Palace.

Mr Starkey, whose documentary series about King Henry VIII is currently showing on Channel 4, said the single storey two bedroom house was an insult to the historic area. "The great building had long gone and in place of the hustle and bustle of power and glory there's silence," he said.

"But the emptiness and silence are an oddly powerful powerful memorial of what was once there. This makes the proposed new building all the stranger and more deplorable.

"Like a snotty nosed punk in a drawing room it will be willfully self-indulgently out of keeping with its surroundings in form, colour and materials." The application, by the owners of Asgill Lodge, includes a bio-mass boiler and rainwater harvester.

The site of the proposed house – dubbed a 'nuclear bungalow' by opponents – adjoins the Tudor remains of the old Richmond Palace, in the town's conservation area. It is in Old Palace Lane, which leads from Richmond Green to the river, which is where is the palace moat was once sited.

The palace was home to Anne of Cleves and was given as part of her divorce settlement. Other famous residents included Elizabeth I and Henry VII, who both died there.

Residents formed a campaign group, the Asgill Lodge Action Group, to fight the proposals. Helena Reimnitz, of local environmental group Protect Our Green Spaces also spoke out against the home. "I can't believe they're allowing it," she said.

"This is a 400 year old garden that used to be the palace's orchard. I'm not against developments – I know we need more houses but this site is so important, I can't believe we're not protecting it." A council spokesman said conservation area rules only applied when a building was being demolished. "The view of the committee was that the level of demonstrable harm that the building would cause was not sufficient to warrant refusal," he added. The applicants refused to comment.